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Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by rhaldridge

Well, as a thought experiment, consider commercial beekeepers who treat, do a lot of splitting to make up for heavy losses, and still have heavy losses. If splitting is a panacea, why don't they get better survival? What is the major difference between them and treatment free beekeepers?

I really can't see brood breaks as a form of treatment, because all you're doing with a brood break is simulating swarming, an entirely natural bee-driven survival mechanism.

They probably do get better survival thats why they make up the nucs.
I'll bet the nucs thye make up survive their first year with or without treatments.

It's not all about a brood break .

When you split a hive up into nucs you are taking the mites in the brood and divvying it up throughout however many nucs you are making up so you no longer have a hive full of mites you have 10 nucs with one frame of mites. Add a brood break to that if you are using queen cells and you have even less mites.
The new queen starts laying like a machine and the bee numbers increase dramatically much faster than the varroa can increase so mite problems are reduced.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by frazzledfozzle

Hi Mike no it hasn't changed my mind at all. I believe that your practice of splitting so heavily is what will keep your mite numbers down as this has been recommended to beekeepers as a way of keeping mite numbers in control and has nothing to do with genetics or tolerance.

If you're not willing to engage with the different effects of different sorts of splitting, it isn't worth trying to continue the conversation. Its like taking the position that all cars are identical in performance because they all have 4 wheels and a body shell. They all have a top speed of 82mph because that's the top speed of a Fiat Uno. Fallacious reasoning.

However: you could be right about (some or all of) my bees having little (at least limited) mite resistance, and I'm not making any claim to the contrary. What I have done is outlined my approach to building mite resistance. As I've already said, we'll see.

A conversation aiming to locate the best ways to make rapid increase without undermining the ability to select for mite resistance would be a very useful thing. It seems constructive conversation isn't the aim.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by rhaldridge

... we have apparently reputable people in the field of bee husbandry who stand up and state that bees cannot be kept successfully without treatment.

If you put a box of the right size out in a field and a swarm comes along and moves in, how is that different in any significant way from bees in a hollow tree? The only difference is that we provide movable frames for the combs. I can't see how that makes a whole lot of difference to the bees.

Do they think you're lying? Do they think you're just lucky?

1. I have not seen anyone claim they cannot be kept. What I have seen is claims they cannot be kept well or that it is not the best or a reliable method of doing it. I have also seen the success of those few that do keep bees treatment free questioned as to the Why their bees do well. Not everyone accepts the claim it has anything to do with the treatment free methods.

2. I could put a pack of wolves in a kennel also. Would you see that difference? Then pack them in a couple hundred per acre. Would you still have a problem seeing a difference? I could then influence them in many ways to reproduce at a rate 4 times what they are even designed to do. they could tolerate doing so because I removed every other stress of existence form them. Still no difference? I could then selectively breed them for traits that are marketable with no regard to the well being of the wolf. it's natural purpose or it's ability to survive. But then could I simply turn them loose when I was done expecting them to live?

I don't question your claim that you see no difference. what I am in question about is are you really looking?

Given that migratory beekeeping the gathering of over a million hives in a relatively tiny space is forefront in the issue of bee diseases. I think the unnatural over population issue is a glaring one. Such comments as yours are the types of things that lead me to simply think this entire treatment free thing is promoted by the intentionally blind, ignorant tree hugging lunatics.

Yeah stuff them in a box. mother nature does that all the time. Really? No difference at all? I wonder how many wild beehives get torn to shreds on a regular basis.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

And then there is this pearl of wisdom from Daniel in an earlier discussion about varroa:

Originally Posted by Daniel Y

Not to mention that I completely disagree with the idea evolution even exists. The theories put for by Darwin in the Origins of Species where disproven before his own death. he admitted his theory was disproven himself. He stated that at eh time he wrote the book the fossil record was not adequate as evidence. but before his death he admitted that the fossil record had become adequate enough to prove his theory was wrong. for evolution to be correct you would have to be able to find fossils that could not be distinguished from one species to the other. and that clearly is not so. That they teach it does not make it truth. It just makes it taught.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Graham, Do you realize that the theory of evolution that is taught today is not the theory Darwin wrote? That it is actually the product of a long history of disproven theories and revisions?

But lets say you are correct. and that mites developing a resistance to treatment is in fact a product of evolution. This means that a species will respond and evolve when influenced by selection. Why then do you believe that mites will not evolve when influenced by the selection via resistant bees? How is it that you believe in evolution when it supports your beliefs but reject it when it does not? either mites evolve when influenced by selection or they do not. You cannot have it both ways. Treatment free bees will only result in alterated faster reproducing. faster running smaller mites that bees cannot groom themselves of and that require a shorter incubation period that the current mites do. In fact any influence you introduce in order to select for resistant bees will at the same time be working on the mite. both will evolve to survive it. If bees can be altered to small cell. so can, and will, the mites. To claim otherwise you argue for and against your own beliefs at the same time. You claim it works on the bees but not on the mites. that cannot possibly be true.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by Daniel Y

Treatment free bees will only result in alterated faster reproducing. faster running smaller mites that bees cannot groom themselves of and that require a shorter incubation period that the current mites do. In fact any influence you introduce in order to select for resistant bees will at the same time be working on the mite. both will evolve to survive it. If bees can be altered to small cell. so can, and will, the mites.

You are quite right (about that thing) Daniel. Its been likened to an 'arms race'. Both predator and predated have to continually evolve in order to stay alive.

They say (I don't know if its true) that sharks have to keep swimming or they sink. Likewise species have to keep evolving, as their predators are continually improving their energy-extraction strategies.

And new predators are always around the corner.

If you stop the predated species evolving, its predators flourish, until there is nothing to predate on.

The predated species can often throw off the predator altogether, or reduce it to a minor irritant.

These are general principles - true for all living things. Apply to bees.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Good to see you actually agree with someone Mike. However what you have said below can you give any examples. Which means, not more theories, it means examples ie facts As you say this happens often you won't be hard pressed to find a good number of examples, enough to be described as "often".
Not bees of course, you cannot prove a premise about bees by repeating the premise about bees.

Originally Posted by mike bispham

If you stop the predated species evolving, its predators flourish, until there is nothing to predate on.

The predated species can often throw off the predator altogether, or reduce it to a minor irritant.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by Oldtimer

[...] can you give any examples. Which means, not more theories, it means examples ie facts As you say this happens often you won't be hard pressed to find a good number of examples, enough to be described as "often".
Not bees of course, you cannot prove a premise about bees by repeating the premise about bees.

I think my first statement is self-evident, so obviously true in the context of the 'arms race' aspect of evolution that I doubt I could find an example of anyone actually saying it.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Uh-oh. A dedicated archivist is a dangerous thing. I expect to fall afoul of your keen eye myself.

Well, I agree with Daniel that migratory beekeeping is pretty hard on bees, which may account for the heavy losses encountered by migratory beekeepers in spite of treating for everything possible.

I would question the value of Daniel's analogies. A pack of wolves in a kennel is pretty different from a beehive in an apiary, unless you always leave the kennel gate open so the wolves can roam around the countryside in their accustomed manner. Bees are essentially wild animals for which we provide a den.

If he truly believes that no one has ever said that bees cannot successfully be kept treatment free, then I can only suppose that he only posts on Beesource; he does not actually read the forum. There may be some evidence for that.

As to the idea that selecting for resistant bees will inevitably select for resistant parasites, I don't think Daniel understands the evolutionary goal for a successful parasite. A successful parasite doesn't want to kill its host. Before people began keeping bees, the bugs had millions of years to come to an accommodation with the many parasites they must have encountered during that time, and managed to do so successfully. If natural selection had the result of evolving more virulent parasites as it evolved resistance to those parasites, obviously bees would not have managed to be a successful species for such a long time.

Daniel may be too young to remember the scourge of tracheal mites (that was going to wipe out the bees,) but it's an instructive instance of bees evolving into an accommodation with a parasite.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

I think TF keepers are selecting strong bees or weak mites. They probably don't know which they get when they have a successful hive. In these cases evolution cuts both ways, and a smart beek keeps the winning insect (if it is the bee).

I think it's at least possible that bees have evolved defenses to tracheal mites. We've already got RoundUp resistant pigweed, and bees have a higher reproductive rate than pigweed.

This is pretty interesting stuff, because if you read up on Isle of Wight Disease, you find many parallels between this epidemic, which wiped out most of the bees in the UK in the 1920s, and CCD. The "disease" was explained in many ways at first... nosema, and then tracheal mites... but I think eventually most experts considered it a syndrome that had several causes, much like CCD.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

I thought you were refering to Tracheal mites in the US in 1984 and then after the appearance of Varroa, tracheal mites seemed to disappear. What happened to them? Where did they go? Where did they come from?

It seems to me that Varroa and Tracheal don't exist in a colony at the same time or no one looks for them at the same time. So, did bees instantly evolve/morph into something new which now deals w/ Tracheal mites?

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by ddoctor

1st, would wooden frames with 4.9 cell size with plastic foundation work as well as PF100?

I don't see why not, but you'd have to find the foundation. I don't know of any off hand. Barry has posted about cutting the foundation out of a PF-120, but then it's just a PF-120 with a wood frame. Whatever floats your boat. I'm finding it takes two years to get a full hive of drawn PF-120s, starting from scratch. But I keep big hives.

Originally Posted by ddoctor

how much emphasis do you put on 11/4 centers spacing and small cell at the same time?

Not much. I like the idea and it works, but I don't preach magic bullets.

Originally Posted by ddoctor

you said at your site something about logs, or in general round living quarters in nature, WHAT IF... I build an oblong or round wooden (like a cask) hive bodies, with removable frames to match (to be legal also), and make it 3-4 high. In your opinion would it make any difference at all, outside the cool factor.

I do not believe it would make much difference. What' you're describing has been done in a Warre sort of philosophy, though I don't know about round ones, I have seen hexagonal or octagonal ones. Warre isn't my style, not utilitarian enough.

BTW in your pics I saw walmart sugar bags, it is beet sugar, GMO's so I'm told, if it don't say pure cane it's beet.[/QUOTE]Well, it's sugar. My beekeeping philosophy doesn't rely on regular and universal feeding. The chances of any sugar getting into production honey is just about zero. Unlike syrup, I'm not convinced granulated sugar is stored at all. They seem to eat it only as needed.

Originally Posted by frazzledfozzle

I also believe that Solomans practice of taking all the brood from his medium strength hives to strengthen up nucs will also remove 90 % of the mites from that hive which will obviously increase the longevity of the donar hive.

That's not Solomon's practice. The only hives from which all brood is taken are weak ones which are dissolved completely. That means 100% of the mites and 100% of the bees, including the queen who gets mooshed and stuck in my pocket. I do borrow some brood from mid-tier hives as needed, but never all of it, and not most of them.

Originally Posted by frazzledfozzle

The only hives/bees I see in this thread that can be truely described as treatment free/mite tolerant are Solomans hives that are honey producers and aren't split so basically stay the same year after year with only the queen changing.

The queen isn't changed artificially in these hives unless they are mean. Perhaps 5-7 hives a requeened in any given year, maybe one or two production hives, after extraction, due to meanness.

Originally Posted by julysun

I think TF keepers are selecting strong bees or weak mites.

If I were succeeding in breeding weak mites, then every other year or so, some of those nasty mites would get in from the neighbors and I'd have a slew of crashes. But that doesn't happen, though it's been predicted in this forum for years. So I can naught but assume that strong bees are the result, or at least a combination of the two.

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by squarepeg

so did the bee and the tracheal mite arrive at host/parasite equilibrium or did the tracheal mite become extinct?

The tracheal mite is not extinct. I would theorize that varroa pushed the early colonies so far that the same thing happened with TMs as is now happening with VMs. The bees got over them, and they don't end up being much of a problem anymore.

Originally Posted by squarepeg

was the treatment for tracheal mites as widespread and aggressive back then as the treatment of varroa is today?

The impression I get from the literature I had from back then is that they were throwing everything they had at everything the bees had. Books and magazines from that era listed a litany of treatments and things that had to be done to keep the bees alive. At the same time Dee Lusby had already been keeping bees on small cell for a while, with conclusive evidence that her bees were not africanized at the time.